This invention relates to the determination of the surface height of three-dimensional objects and, more particularly, to an improved apparatus and method of surface profilometry.
Surface profile measurement by non-contact optical methods has been extensively studied because of its importance in fields such as automated manufacturing, component quality control, medicine, robotics and solid modeling applications. In most of these methods a known periodic pattern, such as a grating, is projected on the surface to be measured and the image of the grating, deformed by the surface, is analyzed to determine the profile. "Demodulation" of the deformed grating by means of a matched reference grating results in the well known Moire fringe patterns, which are easily interpretable as surface contours by a human observer, but, are somewhat more complicated for computer analysis. (See, for example, D. M. Meadows, W. O. Johnson and J. B. Allen, Appl. Opt. 9, 942 (1970); H. Takasaki, Appl. Opt. 9, 1467 (1970); P. Benoit, E. Mathieu, J. Hormiere and A. Thomas, Nouv. Rev. Opt. 6, 67 (1975); T. Yatagai, M. Idesawa and S. Saito, Proc. Soc. Photo-Opt. Instrum. Eng. 361, 81 (1982)). Improvements to the Moire method, aimed at increasing accuracy and at automating the measurements have been based, for example, on phase modulation. (See G. Indebetouw, Appl. Opt. 17, 2930 (1978), D. T. Moore and B. E. Truax, Appl. Opt. 18, 91 (1979).
An alternative approach to Moire is by an analysis of the deformed grating itself without the use of a physical or virtual reference grating. Direct methods based on geometrical analysis of the deformed grating requiring fringe peak determination are computationally complex, slow, and result in low accuracy. Another direct method, based on the use of a Fast Fourier Transform analysis of the deformed grating, has been demonstrated to be more suitable for automated profilometry (see, for example, M. Takeda and K. Mutoh, Appl. Opt. 22, 3977 (1983)). Limitations on measurement of steep object slopes and step discontinuities, the need for high resolution imaging systems and the need for powerful computing capability are some of the disadvantages of the Fast Fourier Transform method.
It is among the objects of the invention to provide an improved method and apparatus for surface profilometry.